What makes a website useful, and how to get the most from yours
- Manelik Sfez
- Sep 23
- 4 min read
Updated: Oct 7
We hear it more often lately: Do we really need a website anymore? With social media, online marketplaces, email platforms, and now AI-driven discovery tools, the question makes sense. A lot has changed. But one thing hasn’t: your website is still the only digital asset you fully own and control. And that matters more now than ever.
Because everything else—your Instagram page, your LinkedIn profile, your listings on directories or platforms—is subject to someone else’s rules. Algorithms change. Interfaces disappear. Entire platforms get de-prioritized. What was working last quarter might be gone the next. But your website? You decide what it says, how it works, and how it evolves. It is the one online space where you write the rules.
If it’s structured correctly, your website becomes the central engine of your marketing, sales, and service systems. If it isn’t, it becomes a bottleneck you don’t see until it’s too late.
Do websites still matter in 2025?
Absolutely. But not for the same reasons they did in 2010.
Today, your website is more than a place to be seen. It’s where your infrastructure lives: your SEO and AEO logic, your automations, your conversion paths, your brand credibility, and your integration with AI models.
A social media page might get visibility, and a platform profile might bring leads. But those are rented spaces. If the algorithm changes, the traffic vanishes. Realize (before it's too late) that your followers don’t belong to you; they belong to the platform. Even your email list (your most effective digital conversion tool) is only as effective as the destination you point people to.
Your website, on the other hand, is permanent, buildable, and strategic. Your website is not just your digital address; it's your online headquarters.
How is a website useful for your business?
A modern website, when built right, performs across five dimensions:
Source of Truth
It anchors your brand, your story, your offer, and your proof. Everything else should point here. When people look you up, this is where they expect clarity and substance.
Conversion Engine
It turns cold visitors into known leads, and from there, into clients. That’s its job. If your website doesn’t have a clear next step or conversion path, you’re leaving opportunity on the table.
Automation Trigger
Forms aren’t just for contact. They should trigger flows: CRM updates, tags, emails, bookings, reminders. A smart website reduces manual work and builds consistency into your follow-up.
SEO & Visibility Hub
A proper site ranks. Not just with Google, but with AI engines. At Ultrabrand, we build dual-layered sites: one layer optimized for human visitors, the other for AI indexing. Why? Because AI systems like ChatGPT and Perplexity don’t crawl websites the way Google used to. They read, interpret, and summarize. If your site isn’t readable by those models, it won’t be recommended. That means fewer referrals, less visibility, and lost authority.
Authority Builder
Trust isn’t claimed; it’s structured. Fast pages, real testimonials, clear navigation, and useful content send signals to both users and machines that you know what you’re doing. A slow, confusing, or vague website does the opposite.
When done right, the website becomes the place where all your other channels send traffic, and where that traffic turns into pipeline.
What makes a website effective today?
The bar has changed. Here's what a high-performing website includes:
Clear and visible next steps (not just a "Contact us" form)
Smart structure for both user navigation and AI parsing
Integrated tools: booking flows, CRMs, email tags, chatbots
A real content strategy: blog, glossary, use cases, deep pages
Technical SEO that goes beyond keywords: schema, markup, AI-readable HTML
It’s not about how many pages you have. It’s about whether your site answers questions before they’re asked, and whether it turns interest into action.
The website’s new job: visibility, conversion, and systems
Let’s simplify the expectations. Your site needs to:
Be found (SEO + AI indexing)
Convert (clarity + call to action)
Activate (triggers + follow-up logic)
If any one of these is broken, the whole thing underperforms.
And keep this in mind: as AI models like ChatGPT and Perplexity become more common entry points to the web, they’re not scraping for keywords. They’re reading your site structure, evaluating its clarity, and extracting its meaning. If your site isn’t readable by AI, you will be missing search traffic; but, worse, you will be invisible to the next generation of digital assistants.
Imagine a future where someone asks their AI, "Who’s the best consulting firm for midsize B2B websites in Switzerland?" If your website isn’t structured to be understood, you’ll never be part of that answer. No matter how good your work is.
What happens when your website underperforms?
It’s not always obvious. You might still get traffic. You might even get leads. But here’s what actually happens:
Your conversion rate stays flat.
Your cost-per-lead stays high.
Your sales team spends time chasing the wrong people.
Your analytics don’t show you what matters.
Your competitors outrank you for terms they shouldn’t own.
Worse, you end up building around the problem: more ad spend, more platforms, more tools, all trying to patch what the website isn’t doing. It’s like trying to win a race with a flat tire. You can push as hard as you want; you’re still stuck.
A modern website is not optional. It’s your business infrastructure.
Every system needs a backbone. In digital business, your website is that spine. It’s your first salesperson, not just a marketing asset. It's your 24/7 operations hub, your credibility engine, your conversion system, and your data collector.
If it isn’t working properly, everything else you build sits on shaky ground: campaigns, outreach, brand. You don’t need a fancier homepage. You need a smarter system. And it starts with getting the website right.
About the author
Manelik Sfez, founder of the Swiss brand consultancy Ultrabrand, brings 25 years of international business, marketing, and brand strategy experience to the table. He has worked with some of the world’s most iconic brands throughout his career. From luxury goods to global retail, financial services, and technological and industry giants, he has guided companies through brand-led transformations that have enabled significant business growth.
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